My 2019 Blitz Lessons

Hey Chess Friends,

2019 has been a big year for me. As we get to the end I'm reflecting on a few things in my chess life, most of which has taken place right here on chess.com. The biggest change was that I started a job working on our chess.com lessons. You should check them out at chess.com/lessons! That gave me lots of time to review videos and study classic games.

In my own game It was a year of progress as I improved both my average blitz rating and my peak blitz rating by about 100 points. One way I accomplished that was to sharpen my openings and make opponents defend difficult positions. Even if my position is only equal in theory, a simple attacking plan can be difficult to defend with the clock ticking. Here's an overview of what has worked well for me with the white pieces this year. A more detailed look at some of these variations is available in IM Keaton Kiewra's Trompowsky course here: https://www.chess.com/lessons/how-to-play-the-trompowsky.

Stonewall style attacks:

I've had a lot of success with plans involving pawns on d4 and f4, along with a knight on e5. This setup can be a little risky, so I aim for it with a black pawn on d5 and my dark squared bishop either on g5 or already off the board. That way I ensure that my knight can reach the strong e5 outpost and I don't get stuck with the traditionally bad stonewall bishop. Here are some examples of this plan at work.

This is a model game. Black doesn't make any individually decisive mistakes, but just doesn't develop counterplay as the white pieces all swarm the kingside.

Often there are more brutal tactics involved. 

In the next game, notice that a similar setup came out of the Exchange Slav instead of the Trompowsky. The Greek Gift sacrifice wasn't a forced win here, but it was a good practical choice in a fast game.

You want to keep your options open beyond just kingside play. Often that involves forcing an endgame where black's c8 bishop is restricted, like in this game.

Sicilian Style d4 Openings

I've never played many open Sicilians, but I've found that allowing transpositions into Sicilian style positions provides good attacking chances without as much theory as you get with 1.e4.  Note that I play a lot of Trompowsky's in blitz, but rarely trade on f6 early in the game. It's more useful in blitz to focus on a quick attack and the dark squared bishop might be a good attacking piece.

Here's a miniature against a GM, who wasn't careful enough in the opening. 

The 3.Nc3 line gets great attacking positions. The White queen quickly reaches h4 and Black must solve unusual problems. This next one was one of my most fun games of the year.

 Here's a different attacking plan from the same opening, played in an over the board blitz tournament against a master.

Pawn Storms in the Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit Declined is probably black's most solid defense against 1.d4, so I'm not going to find a refutation. I often aim for aggressive pawn advances on the kingside. They're often not theoretically dangerous, but they're rare lines and require precise play by Black.

This game started quietly, but with a blocked center, Black had trouble responding to my plan to open lines on the kingside.

Here's one of my favorite attacks of the year. 

Here's one more direct attack that Black couldn't handle.